As
part of on-going research nearly four years after the Deepwater Horizon
oil spill, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will
team up with a group of high school students in Florida to collect remnants of
oil from Gulf Coast beaches this week. Marine
chemist Chris Reddy studies how the many compounds that compose petroleum
hydrocarbon, or oil, behave and change over time after an oil spill. He and his
researchers have collected and analyzed about 1,000 oil samples from the Gulf
Coast since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

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"With
an iconic and wide-ranging spill like Deepwater Horizon, the need to
perform such long-term studies is a top priority for me," said Reddy. He
has already catalogued many of these samples in an on-line database to make the
data available to the public and scientific community.

How
the compounds react and weather in the environment also can help inform the
chemical industry, governments, and cleanup efforts when future oil spills
occur.

"Spilled
oil undergoes a series of changes due to Mother Nature called 'weathering.'
Weathering differs from one site to another based on several factors including
the type of oil spilled and the local climate. Therefore, each location is a
living laboratory that allows us to interrogate how Nature responds to these
uninvited hydrocarbons."

On
Feb. 28, the group of students will work alongside Reddy's team and colleagues
from the Florida State University in one such living laboratory at a Pensacola,
Fla. beach. This field expedition is part of a new education initiative called
the Gulf Oil Observers (GOO), which trains volunteers to be effective citizen
scientists. GOO mentors are educators and scientists associated with the Deep-C
Consortium research project — a long-term study investigating the environmental
consequences of oil released in the deep Gulf on living marine resources and
ecosystem health.

The
students from West Florida High School of Advanced Technology in Pensacola will
collect samples of small, round clumps of sand mixed with crude oil. These
oiled sand patties can be easily overlooked on the beach. No bigger than a
silver dollar, they resemble small dark rocks, driftwood, and other beach
debris.

"But
if you know what to look for, they're not difficult to identify," said
Reddy. That's why he and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael will train 23
high school students, the first group of GOO volunteers, on-site in Pensacola,
Fla. to help conduct this research.